to them," he ended bitterly.

Ralph looked outraged. "Well, of all ingratitude! Mahailey's been
ironing your damned old shirts for a week!"

"Yes, yes, I know. Don't rattle me. I forgot to put any
handkerchiefs in my trunk, so you'll have to get the whole bunch
in somewhere."

Mr. Wheeler appeared in the doorway, his Sunday black trousers
gallowsed up high over a white shirt, wafting a rich odor of
bayrum from his tumbled hair. He held a thin folded paper
delicately between his thick fingers.

"Where is your bill-book, son?"

Claude caught up his discarded trousers and extracted a square of
leather from the pocket. His father took it and placed the bit of
paper inside with the bank notes. "You may want to pick up some
trifle your wife fancies," he said. "Have you got your railroad
tickets in here? Here is your trunk check Dan brought back. Don't
forget, I've put it in with your tickets and marked it C. W., so
you'll know which is your check and which is Enid's."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

Claude had already drawn from the bank all the money he would
need. This additional bank check was Mr. Wheeler's admission that
he was sorry for some sarcastic remarks he had made a few days
ago, when he discovered that Claude had reserved a stateroom on
the Denver express. Claude had answered curtly that when Enid and
her mother went to Michigan they always had a stateroom, and he
wasn't going to ask her to travel less comfortably with him.

At seven o'clock the Wheeler family set out in the two cars that
stood waiting by the windmill. Mr. Wheeler drove the big
Cadillac, and Ralph took Mahailey and Dan in the Ford. When they
reached the mill house the outer yard was already black with
motors, and the porch and parlours were full of people talking
and moving about.

Claude went directly upstairs. Ralph began to seat the guests,
arranging the folding chairs in such a way as to leave a passage
from the foot of the stairs to the floral arch he had constructed
that morning. The preacher had his Bible in his hand and was
standing under the light, hunting for his chapter. Enid would
have preferred to have Mr. Weldon come down from Lincoln to marry
her, but that would have wounded Mr. Snowberry deeply. After all,
he was her minister, though he was not eloquent and persuasive
like Arthur Weldon. He had fewer English words at his command
than most human beings, and even those did not come to him
readily. In his pulpit he sought